Previously: We’re living in an alternate world where mutants and humans aren’t at each others throats except, well, they still are a little. Wolverine is the only man who knows that we’re not in Kansas anymore, only he’s on the run from SHIELD (as far as we know) and Luke Cage has just abducted him for reasons unknown. Oh, and also Hawkeye is alive again!

After two issues we finally get our first glimpse of Genosha, a gleaming white tower stood high over a prosperous, lovely-looking country. Magnus banners are flying everywhere, purple and proud, as Magneto surveys things from his balcony whilst wearing a lovely pair of sandals. Sandals, for some reason, seem to be the most perfect character choice I’ve ever seen given for Magneto, and I can’t explain why. He’s also chosen to wear a huge cloak which drifts for a good six feet in his wake, which must weigh an absolute tonne.

Blossom falls from above during this entire sequence, which is a really nice touch as well. A little boy (Wiccan!) runs up to Magneto and shows him a toy boat which he made “with my mind”, Magneto takes the boat, looks at it quietly, and then stares soulessly at the boy for a good three panels without saying anything. Is this symbolic? At this point we don’t know who set up this whole alternate universe or gave Wanda the push, but I’m assuming this is all meant to suggest that Magneto was behind things right from the start? It’s not very convincing, though.

If you enjoyed that sequence set in Genosha, then bad news! The rest of the issue is entirely spent with Wolverine and Luke Cage’s crew, in an extended, somewhat boring conversation which does very little for anyone. Everybody is standing over Wolverine, ready to fight, whilst Hawkeye absolutely flips out at the Canadian. There’re double exclamation points flying all over the place here, and the guy looks like a complete psycho. You’re welcome, Hawkeye fans! There’s a girl stood right at the back in this scene, looking totally freaked out. If your first thought is: “who is this girl?” then just wait and see – she’s been promised as being “the most important person in the Marvel Universe” in solicitations.

Before Wolverine can calm the situation down, Hawkeye basically snaps, holds an arrow to his ear, and appears to fire the arrow straight through Wolverine’s brain, knocking the tracker out in the process. Good lord almighty! That’s a severe reaction to take to this complete stranger, although I think the suggestion here is that Hawkeye is the “Agent Smith” of the House of M “Matrix” – he’s there to ensure that nobody messes around with Wanda’s plan, and acts as a double-agent protecting the Magnus dream.

We get the standard “you killed him! wait, he’s getting back up” sequence which is a classic from Bendis, as the characters talk about Shaw’s red army. So it looks like Sebastian Shaw is leading SHIELD, here? I wonder if Harry Leland is wandering around somewhere, being barred entry onto a helicarrier because nobody trusts him not to capsize the thing.

Black Cat, who spends most of this issue stating the obvious, points that Wolverine is awake again, and there’s a hilarious touch from Coipel where exclamation lines jump out of Hawkeye and Luke Cage like they’re in a bande dessinee or something. It doesn’t get mentioned as mcuh as how his characters are all stunning, but Coipel’s use of body language in the scene is just brilliant. The Cage Crew spent too long bickering about the tag, it seems, and now the Red Guard are coming in to capture Wolverine again. So wait – last time it took them a good two days to catch Wolverine when he never left the State, but now he’s teleported off to a secret underground base, and they can catch him in under a minute?

Sentinels burst through the roof, with little Magneto emblems moulded onto their heads – nice touch – and prepare to start murdering all the sapiens there.

Misty Knight is immediately killed off, continuing a tradition of women getting a bum rap in Marvel event comics under Bendis, along with some of the characters I couldn’t recognise. Wolverine of course runs straight to save the young girl, only for Cloak to swoop across everybody and teleport them off to the only safe place he could think of – Kingpin’s apartment. Because Kingpin was referenced as having been beaten into a coma, you see! Continuity!

Hell’s Kitchen has been completely destroyed, and all the surviving characters line up to view it/let us see who is still around. Somebody called “Abe” was apparently left behind, which I think refers to the Black Tiger (he couldn’t just call himself the Tiger because of the contractual obligation that every African-American provide an easy way of being identified off a call-sheet, I guess). They talk back and forth in the typical Bendis style, where lots of words get used to explain very little, before Wolverine asks about the Avengers – who apparently never existed here. I presume that DILFy Magneto defeated Kang and everybody all by himself in this continuity, then.

Next page is Wolverine explaining his situation, and what the world was like before things went all magical and witchy, eventually turning to Magneto and how he sucks. When listing Magneto’s family – Wolverine mentioned “a couple”, because Polaris never gets her due – we find out (from double agent Hawkeye, as I’m convinced he remains) that Wanda is the human one. Magneto has two mutant kids, one human one, and raised them all up equally as a message of equality. Which, if we all know Magneto, likely means that he spent an equal amount of time mentally abusing and ignoring them in turn, possibly forcing them all to do dances for his amusement.

The dialogue is ridiculous here, and there’s a point where Wolverine goes “she could screw with the world around here. A little here and there. HERE AND THERE!” which is hilarious. Calm down, this is a way better universe than the one you just came from, stop being such a dramapuss. Moon Knight agrees with me, because he’s making the cuckoo hand motion the whole time this speech is going on. Oh yeah, and you’re one to talk about people being crazy, Spector. Wolverine calls this “a damn mutant Utopia”, in the process giving Matt Fraction a really bad idea for future use.

Hawkeye, who has been bristling the entire time, hears straight from Wolverine that in this ‘real’ timeline, he’s meant to be dead. He struts off, pouting. Nobody is convinced by anything Wolverine says apart from Cage, who makes offhand references to being married, having a kid on the way, various things that only happened in the real timeline. The girl, it seems, also knows that they’re living in an alternate continuity, and so somehow she tracked down the leader of an underground movement, got access to him, and persuaded him that he’s living in the Matrix. This girl’s good, you guys. She knows stuff.

Wolverine chats to the girl – Layla, although “not like the song”, which is a fun touch because Wolverine is really old – and they realise that the Magneto family have somehow managed to give everything the thing they wanted most. So where the flip is flipping Jean Grey, then? I do like that Wanda’s idea of “give people what they want” involves forcing them all to watch TV shows starring Wonder Man, though. Wolverine concludes that they used Xavier’s powers to figure out what everybody desired most, and then Wanda went and created a whole world around that.

They Cloakport across to Emma and Scott Summers’ house (which confirms that they’re both married in this reality, and also that Emma apparently changed her surname for his? That doesn’t sound likely!) They do a group hero pose, but the best thing about it is that Layla immediately retches like she’s about to be sick, ruining the moment entirely. For some reason, too, she’s wearing a shirt with 46664 on it, which I suppose is meant to show that she’s a fan of Nelson Mandela? There must be some kind of comparison in mind here, but I’m not educated enough to understand it.

Logan tells Layla to do whatever she did to Luke Cage, but better, and to Emma Frost, which causes Layla to freak out and panic. She calms down once she gets to talk about Daredevil though, proving in the process that there’s no bigger hunk than Matt Murdoch, before out of nowhere Logan just straight up tells her that she’s a mutant. Logan, we were having a moment about hunky Daredevil here! Way to ruin the moment.

Emma walks in and immediately assumes she’s being robbed by the most ridiculously costumed bunch of street toughs ever seen. She freezes them all in place psychically, making Coipel go absolutely crazy with the exclamation glances, before overhearing Logan and Layla’s thoughts. She delves into Layla’s mind, but that makes Layla’s eyes go green and suddenly we live through the life of Emma Frost. This… this mainly involves boobs, to be honest.

She flashes to the same chapel that Logan saw, with three figures standing over a petrified, hostage Xavier, before snapping back to reality. She knows everything that happened in the ‘real’ timeline, we find out, meaning Layla has THE most convenient power set ever seen. It’s a bit like Wolverine is James Bond and Layla is a watch with mounted laser that is only of use for the single exact mission he’s going on this time.

Logan goes to grab a beer, because now we’ve got a real leader on our team, whilst Emma Frost goes absolutely crazy. She compares and contrasts her two worlds before going off on a tear against Magneto, his kids, the concept of “House of Magnus” and everything else. What you notice here is that Wolverine’s chosen to go first to the only other person who agreed with him that Wanda should be murdered during her free-form trial in issue #1. Will this be a plot point going forward, where he only fixes the minds of the people who agree with him?

…Well no, not really. But we’ll get into that more next time, as this is the random point where the issue decides to end. Logan says “this still don’t mean the whole damn world… ain’t screwed for good” and we cut until next issue. Now, I’m still not entirely sure what Logan is even talking about here – everybody seemed to be perfectly happy with everything they ever wanted, and certainly Hawkeye was having a nicer time being alive than being dead. As, you have to imagine, are the millions of people living in Genosha. Couldn’t you at least give this an extra day or two, Wolverine? You have to give something a chance before you just dismiss it forever.

Come back soon for the next issue, where we’ll get to see Wolverine arbitrarily decide that more people need to have a brain cleanse of their happy lives, and reminded of how much their lives actually suck in the ‘real’ timeline, everybody! Heroism!

To be continued!

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